Two-year serving General Manager Ciaran Clarke has left his position at Falmouth’s arts and science venue, The Poly. Ciaran withdrew from The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society at the beginning of March due to a change in personal circumstances, but also from a desire to get back into making and creating theatre again. “It’s a place I care about a great deal, and one I’d like to continue to play a part in seeing it blossom as a cultural hub for Cornwall and the South West,” he said. The Poly is a cultural and scientific charity that exists to promote innovation in the arts and sciences that venues theatre shows, films, lectures, exhibitions, conferences, workshops and more. Founded by two daughters of the Falmouth based Fox family in 1833, The Poly is now being run by Lesley Robinson who became
the Interim General Manager after Ciaran’s departure. Ciaran began working at The Poly as a trustee on a voluntary basis in May 2010 after he graduated from Trinity College Dublin. When The Poly closed in January 2010, he was the one who set up the Save Our Poly campaign. Ensuring that the building could run properly each day, he felt his time was better spent investing his efforts in The Poly while there was time to save it. “It would have been an enormous loss to the town, and it’s great to have safeguarded its future over the past two years,” he said. Ciaran was then offered a paid job in September 2010 because of the work he was doing, and in January 2011 applied for the General Manager position which he managed to secure. “It was never really something I expected to do, arts
Falmouth’s Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society
Ex-General Manager Ciaran Clarke
General Manager Leaves The Poly
admin,” he said. “It was very much something I fell into.” Ciaran is now working with Miracle Theatre, playing the role of Jack in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, whilst he still involved as a volunteer at The Poly working on their programming and volunteering on the box office. “I just can’t kick the habit,” he said. “It was quite stressful at times, though a truly wonderful experience and I regret nothing from my time there.” Ciaran is now also developing a new piece of comic with Arts for Health Cornwall about stress and anxiety, using his own experiences as a way into exploring something much bigger. He will be engaging with stress and anxiety sufferers through workshops across July with the intention to tour it to universities from January 2013. He is also writing new work and booking a Christmas tour for his show Christmas. Time. with colleague Dan Richards. The production for The Importance of Being Earnest begins touring on Thursday 14th June and will run until September touring around all of Cornwall. For more ticket information you can visit: http://www.miracletheatre.co.uk